Hi I'm James Mason

Yes it’s official we have a starting date!! Or should I say targeted start date for our personal renovations, its the 4th of March 2014.

These renovation and home improvements have been in the planning stages for the last 12 months and we are now coming down to the pointy end of being able to commence construction. I can’t begin to tell you how excited we are to start, while its been 12 months in the planning and approval stages its really been since we purchased the property 14 months ago that we have been talking about what we would like to do the place.

With construction due to start in March this will get us very close to achieving one of my personal goals about our renovations that i mentioned in my last blog post about my goals for the next 6 months.

To give you a guide of stages and steps we have gone through to get to where we are now I have listed below what has taken place, and what is left to do before we can commence construction. This is a bit of a laundry list and not the most exciting thing to read, but it will give you an appreciation of some of the steps involved.

• 7-1-2013  Negotiations with with various architects and draftsmen
• 12-2-2013 Selected an architect.
• 20-2-2013 Engaged the services of a surveyor prior to plan drafting stages.
• 4-3-2013  Architect performed the initial site measure up.
• 19-3-2013 Received first round of concept drawings from the architect.
• 10-4-2013 Amended drawing revisions received after some minor changes.
• 19-4-2013 Attended a council pre DA meeting to discuss our proposal prior to full DA submission. (I highly recommend a pre DA meeting)
• 22-4-2013 Pre DA meeting notes received back from the planning authority.
• 8-5-2013 Geo technical report conducted on site so a report could be submitted with with the DA application.
• 13-6-2013 Geo Tech report received back along with some other documents needed for final DA submission.
• 17-6-2013 Submission of DA drawings and documents to the council planning authority.

21 Day notification period commenced a week or so after we lodged our DA submission and our plans were sent to 3 neighbors either side of us and 6 across the road, during this time if they had any objections to our plans they could put an official complaint in writing.

NOTE – We did not get one objection from our neighbors and i put that down to being very transparent about what we were proposing, we invited them over once we had our draft DA plans completed to make sure if they had any concerns we could address them prior to the submission. I highly recommend that anyone planning a DA takes this course of action.

What’s left to do before we can start?

• Landscape architect to be engaged to draft plans as per one of councils imposed conditions.
• Receive final engineering drawings.
• Apply for our owner builders permit. (I will cover the topic of becoming an owner builder later in some of my posts)
• Send package of remaining documentation to private certifier.
• Send out notice of commencement letter to surrounding neighbors.
• Send notice of commencement to council and certifier.
• Start of site establishment works to the property which includes protecting areas that will be kept during the renovation and making safe working and living areas prior to starting with the initial demolition works.

You can see by the above there is a lot of planning involved in organizing a renovation and I have really only listed the main head line items. When you drill down there are even further steps and planning that is required, but I won’t go into to much detail with that here.

Could all of the above process been achieved in a shorter period of time? Yes of course, but it comes down to how much time you can spare to work on the process, most of us have full time jobs or run our own businesses so how much time and resources you can throw at something like this will vary from person to person.

There is always the option of having someone like an architect, builder or building consultant manage the whole process for you, but this will obviously cost you allot more than if you can handle some of the process yourself.

So how much time would it save if i paid someone to manage the entire process?? Well in some cases not much at all as it could be the council submission process that takes the longest. I know of instances where it has taken over two years for some clients to get their DA approved, and others just a few short moths, so it will always be different depending on a whole swag of variables.

I recommend doing your homework before you embark on your journey and talk to various professionals and consultants to get a gauge of what you will be likely to encounter before your start.

I will be sure to keep you posted on the progress of the renovations as we go along, and as always if you have any questions in relation to anything regarding planning for a renovation or anything else related to this site, be sure to leave a comment below or email me directly through my contacts page.

Does 12 months to plan for a major home renovation sound like a long time? If you have recently renovated how long did the planning take you?

Best wishes

James Mason.